Peter and Paul Cathedral

The history of the clock is very interesting: In the mid-nineteenth it played "Glorious is Our Lord", in 1906 "God save the Czar", in 1952 the anthem of the Soviet Union until 2001, when it was repaired by Belgian and Dutch engineers ve gave it a different tune. But once inside, do not forget that out of respect, no one can sit down, not even the Czar himself, so there are no benches nor throne under the imperial canopy or the rest of the church. In front of it is the podium with wooden representations of the apostles Peter and Paul, accompanied by the four evangelists. It holds the best and largest collection of paintings from the time of Peter the First. In the back is the carved and gilded iconostasis, like a triumphal arch symbolizing the Russian victories in Northern wars. Looking around ourselves we could see that the temple is like a pantheon for all the Russian emperors. They all lie under the same white marble sarcophagi. And only the graves of Alexander II and his wife Maria Alexandrovna, née princessa of Hessen-Darmstadt, are made of the Ural jasper and rhodonite, carved by local stonemasons in gratitude for the abolition of the serfdom. To the left of the altar there is a small chapel, where a quartet of musicians interpreted a lovely exhibition of sacred Russian music in a capella.